Category: General

Apologies for long absence….

I have been neglecting my blog recently for which I apologise….  It is difficult in term time to keep up with putting new material on here with so much else going on.  But we have half term starting next Friday so I will be posting iGCSE and pre-U material each day next week.

If anyone has any requests for topics they would like to see included, please contact me via a comment on this site or via Twitter?

Sadness and grief

This week has brought some great highs but two terrible lows.  I had an amazing few days with my sister and her family in Cornwall, getting burnt on the beach, eating out at great restaurants and spending time with my niece and nephews all of whom are growing up so fast.   This peaceful Cornish existence was shattered by the news of Felix’s death in France.  It was just a couple of weeks ago that I was sitting in the sunshine at the Magdalen College ground with him and his Oxfordshire under-14 team mates, congratulating him on his great bowling that day and sharing a joke or two about some of the T1 boys.  I find death difficult to cope with whenever it sneaks across my path.  I guess it is one price of being an atheist and not seeing a higher purpose in all the suffering.  But when the person who dies is 14 years old, it seems to me exceptionally unfair and cruel.

I know the next few weeks will be a terrible time for his family and friends.  It is human nature to try to look for positives in the darkest times, to seek meaning in the messiness of our lives but I don’t think this is really possible.  I think there is some value in just quiet grief and contemplation without the need for false explanations or meanings.

Sport is an emotional business (well it is for me anyway) and I know Felix’s team mates from Threepenny 1, from the Dragon and from the Oxfordshire sides will all be hurting very badly.  It is a cliche that sport doesn’t build character but that it reveals it.  Felix’s character was revealed all too clearly this summer.   Felix set himself high standards and was ambitious, eager to learn and to better himself.  He knew how to celebrate successes and I will not forget the joy on his face when he repeatedly knocked the opposition stumps out of the ground, bowling fast at Tonbridge.  But Felix had a generosity of spirit such that the successes of others also brought him joy.  I find it hard to imagine that I won’t feel the smack of the cricket ball hitting my baseball mit as Felix unleashes yet another bullet throw, nor see his happy smile.

I had to come back from holiday early to go to the funeral of a school friend yesterday.   Both events have reminded me that not everyone lives to see their undoubted potential come to fruition, that our grip on life can be less strong than we sometimes believe in our cocooned existence, and that you might not be given a final chance to tell people how much they mean to you.  In reality I had lost touch with Lucy, chatted to her on Facebook a few times in the past ten years but there was so much still to say.  She died not knowing that a whole gang of her school friends from 30 years ago would travel to her funeral, some flying in from overseas, some driving up from London but all as determined as I was to be there.  It doesn’t make the hurt any better but at least we had a chance afterwards to talk, to laugh a lot about the old times and to renew some of the friendships from times past that actually are such a vital part of who we all are.

One of my favourite pieces of writing about death is a famous short poem by David Harkins.

You can shed tears that she is gone

or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back

or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her

or it can be full of the love you shared

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday

or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday

You can remember her only that she is gone

or you can cherish her memory and let it live on

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back

or you can do what she would want:  smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

 

RIP Lucy xx and RIP Felix

 

Berkshire Cup final report

After a season in which many school cricket matches were lost to the weather, it seemed strangely appropriate that the Berkshire cup final was played this afternoon on a beautiful sunny afternoon on Dutchmans 1.  There are few better places to spend a few hours in late June and after a disappointing batting performance yesterday at Harrow, the Eton boys had the chance today to show that they could construct the partnerships necessary to post a winning total.  We were fortunate to have two excellent umpires, a virgin strip on which to bat and in spite of losing the toss, the chance to bat first seemed to offer us a big advantage.

Spectators on the boundary might have felt this early advantage had been lost when the Eton team lost two wickets in the first three overs.  Ed Doughty was caught off a leading edge playing round a low full toss and when Matt Pein, the player with the two highest individual scores of the season holed out to mid off with his second ball, a careful approach was needed in the next few overs to stop the early momentum Bradfield had built up.  Sam Dawson was batting sensibly at one end until a straight ball from the impressive Brabham skittled through his defences.  23 for 3 was not the start we had wanted.  Charlie Lyons was batting well, hitting the ball cleanly much of the time especially to mid on and midwicket, but an unfortunate mix up led to him being run out for the second time in two days.  There then followed three impressive partnerships.  Harry Thistlethwayte’s batting has improved considerably in recent weeks and from the start of his innings today he looked focused and determined to bat for a long time.  Freddie Christian had joined him and they batted well together up to the drinks break at 19 overs.  Thistlethwayte was playing his square cut and late cut to any short balls he received and Christian can play exquisite shots when the ball is over pitched and he is given any width outside off stump.  Christian’s first 11 balls had been watchfully played for no runs but he was just starting to play his more customary attacking game at the drinks interval.  I knew that this break in his concentration was going to pose Freddie a problem and it wasn’t a surprise to see him fall soon after play resumed.  By then though he had scored an important 20 runs at a run a ball including three fours and one six.  His partnership of 44 runs with Thistlethwayte had almost doubled the score to 93 for 5 but in spite of the wicket, the momentum had turned and the Eton batsmen now started to look more comfortable at the crease.

Josh Britton in only his second start for T1 joined Thistlethwayte and between them they added 45 excellent runs in just 6.3 overs.  Both boys were hitting boundaries when offered loose bowling by the Bradfield slower bowlers and Britton was disappointed to eventually be bowled playing round a straight ball.  This brought Bertie Duncan to the crease at 138 for 6 and I knew that we didn’t need to get many more runs to be in control of the game.  Bertie has played the last two matches in T2 and has returned with increased confidence following two good innings.  He played a superb pull shot early in his innings and his 25 runs off 23 balls were absolutely crucial in supporting Thistlethwayte as he approached his individual century.  Harry Thistlethwayte’s innings today was most impressive and it was a shame that with a couple of overs to go he was out for 92 off just 81 balls.  He scored runs all round the wicket, milking the easy singles offered when the field spread but also punishing the poor balls and showing creativity and confidence in hitting the ball to unguarded areas behind the wicket.  Thistlethwayte and Duncan had put on 53 runs off 44 balls, rotating the strike well, running singles aggressively with excellent calling and communication.  A couple of cameos from Fred Corbett and Tom Lytle brought the innings to a close on a good total of 203 for 8 after 35 overs.

Chasing over two hundred is a formidable challenge for U14 players even on a beautiful wicket with some short boundaries.  The Eton opening attack bowled with reasonable control even though there was minimal swing and when Christian beat the Bradfield opener Khanna for pace in his first over hitting the top of middle stump, Eton had made the positive start they had wished.  Brabham had only returned from a family event in Australia late the previous evening but he followed up his impressive opening spell earlier in the afternoon with some confident batting.  He survived a couple of chances when outside edges carried to the slips and keeper but it wasn’t a surprise when he finally fell caught behind by Lytle off Christian who was now comfortably into his rhythm and bowling with some pace and venom even on a placid pitch.  Bradfield put on their biggest partnership of the innings but were not imposing themselves and were getting further behind on the run rate.  Eton’s control increased when our two slower bowlers came on.  Charlie Lyons has been a revelation with his bowling in recent weeks and his rather old-fashioned virtues of getting in close to the stumps and bowling with impressive control of length and line have made him a handful for many batsmen this season and the Bradfield boys found him impossible to get away.  Lyons finished this innings with impressive figures of 6 overs, 3 maidens, 2 wickets for just 6 runs.  Bertie Duncan executed an impressive run out with a strong accurate throw and at the other end Thistlethwayte was probing away. When he forced the left hander opener Patel to nick one to the keeper, it was clear that the result of this game was no longer in doubt.   Thistlethwayte then bowled two of the middle order and when Christian came back on to mop up the tail, the only real question was whether he could take the 5 wickets needed for an invitation to the Centurions’ dinner next week.  In the end he fell one short but his bowling figures of 6-1-14-4 was a splendid effort and his best bowling display of the season so far.

I don’t normally award a man of the match as cricket is much more of a team game than many realise.  The strength of the current T1 side is certainly to be found in their spirit, concentration and energy they can put into performances.  Yesterday I noticed Harry Livingstone running in from fine leg to back up the keeper and saw some great work from Fred Corbett in between overs running over to encourage bowlers when things were not going so well.    These are contributions that can easily go unrecognised yet are absolutely crucial in a successful side.  But yesterday was so clearly Thistlethwayte’s match that it would be churlish not to give him the additional accolade of “man of the match” in this final.  He scored 92 runs off 81 balls when we were struggling in the first innings and then followed up with three wickets in the second innings to close the game out.  My final comment of this report must be to congratulate Charlie Lyons on his captaining of the side.  There are difficult decisions to be made as captain but Charlie is getting more and more of these correct and his charismatic leadership of the team has been one of the highlights of the season.

 

Last minute advice: no cramming please

I hope the paper goes really well this morning and all the hard work you have done pays off. This is the culmination of three years of work and there is little to be gained from any last minute cramming this morning. So I would try to relax and summon up your concentration and will for this one last exam.

  • Have a proper breakfast.
  • Make sure you are properly hydrated – fruit juice this morning and water in the exam (if allowed)
  • Read the question carefully – every word in every question. If there are data given in the question, take your time to make sure you understand what the data means before starting to answer any questions.

If there is a risk for you today, it is that it is easy to get too blasé and slapdash in the final exams in a set. You have sat many papers in the last few weeks and you can forget the importance of the exam technique and question-answering skills you had honed in the middle of May. Please don’t let that happen to you. Focus for the entire 60 minutes, think before writing and don’t waffle.

  • Any question with more than 3 marks should be answered with bullet points.

Enjoy this morning, enjoy showing the examiner your mastery of iGCSE Biology and then enjoy a long, well-deserved summer holiday.

Last week of work for Biology IGCSE students

This is the final week of work for all iGCSE year 11 Biologists.

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For the D block boys I teach, think back to those first few days at the start of F block when you had your new uniforms that didn’t fit and consider how much you have changed and learned in the intervening years.  Now with just one final week of Biology revision to go, this is the time to make those final steps in your journey to an A* grade.

It is so easy when the GCSE exams are almost done to relax, to ease up a little and not give of your best this week.  Please don’t do this – there is plenty of time for relaxing and easing up in late June, July and August.  You can still make a big difference to your chances next Monday if you can keep working hard for the final few days.

1) If you need more example of past paper 2s, please get in touch via email/Twitter or by commenting on the blog.

2) If you want to go through any past papers you have completed with me, contact me to fix up a time to meet up.

3) Why not have a go at one of my Zondle revision challenges this week?; next one is Monday 9pm – see Twitter feed for details of how to register.

4) Keep looking over your revision notes, keep practising questions and focus your revision now on the topics most likely to appear.  See my earlier post on question-spotting for paper 2 if you haven’t already.

Feedback on Zondle Biology revision challenge part 2

The questions in this revision test were more challenging than last time.  I hope that players found them interesting and useful.

The plant transport questions at the start were well answered overall.  Osmosis is the only way water can ever cross a cell membrane and although active transport does occur in the root hair cells (pumping mineral ions such as nitrates into the cell against the concentration gradient), water cannot be directly pumped against its concentration gradient using energy from respiration.

The cloning questions were difficult but I think the low scores here were perhaps more to do with problems with my school wifi than with your abilities to answer them!  Micropropagation is the way that you learned when a small part of a plant is cut out, sterilised, washed and then added to a culture medium that triggers cell differentiation.  You probably did this experiment with explants from a cauliflower.  The aim was to produce whole new plants from these small explants.  This technique could not work with animals simply because animal’s bodies contain many more types of tissue and have a more complex internal architecture that requires a much more sophisticated genetic programme of development.

I want to talk about a few questions in the latter stages of the test that were not well answered.  I am sure there is plenty you can all learn from these.

The first was the one that asked you what was meant by a “diploid cell”.  More than half of you thought that  diploid meant having 46 chromosomes.  This is almost a trick question because of course in humans, diploid cells will have 46 chromosomes.  But diploid can be applied to any cell that has chromosomes found in homologous pairs.  The number 23 is only important to humans as for our species it is the number of homologous pairs of chromosomes found in our diploid cells.  Different species have differing numbers of pairs of chromosomes, some less than the number in humans but in many species they have more.

The second big idea question was the true or false question on whether energy is recycled in the ecosystem like carbon atoms.  It is vital you understand that there is absolutely no recycling of energy ever in an ecosystem.  Energy enters in the form of light energy being trapped by plants in photosynthesis and all this energy ultimately ends up as heat energy in the atmosphere.  To find out the details of how it gets there, please read the relevant sections on my blog.  Try the tag energy from the Tag cloud on the right of the screen.

There was one question in the quiz which not a single player answered correctly and it is the one about which type of cells produce antibodies.  Antibodies are made from a cell called a plasma cell.  Plasma cells secrete antibodies in large numbers to combat an infection.  Plasma cells are descended from B lymphocytes that have been activated by the presence of antigen.  This clonal selection theory is one of the most complicated bits in iGCSE Biology so make sure you have looked carefully at it.  The final question was about active v passive immunity.  This is not specifically mentioned in the specification so perhaps is a bit mean to include but if you can understand it properly, you understand how immunity works.  Passive immunity is the name for when antibodies are transferred, perhaps across the placenta for a foetus or in an injection as an adult.  Antibodies are made of protein and so do not exist for long in the blood – after a month or two they will all have been broken down and cleared from the blood.  So passive immunity cannot give long-lasting protection.  Active immunity is when memory cells are produced via a clonal selection response.  These memory cells can survive for an entire lifetime and so do provide long lasting protection.

By far the biggest thing you can learn from this quiz however was about virus structure.  I asked you whether “viruses are made from a different kind of cell not found in animals or plants – true or false.”  Almost everyone went for false but remember this can’t be correct:  viruses are definitely not made of cells!  They are much simpler than even the simplest cell and just consist of a protein coat with some genetic material (DNA or RNA) inside.  No cell membrane, no cytoplasm, no metabolism – just two chemicals associated into one simple particle.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the quiz – look out for the next one on my Twitter feed and please use the comment facility on this blog to get in touch if you have any questions or want more explanations.

Buttler, Humbug and Cricket’s Moral Code

I may be a single, dissenting voice in the “controversy” in the Joss Buttler run out yesterday, certainly from reading some of the utter tosh in the newspapers this morning.  Ashley Giles called the dismissal “unsavoury” along with a whole host of rentaquote ex-players (who all work in the media so have to add to the media storm) and I have just read the MailOnline’s report that says that “the run out is legal but it is not something anyone would want to see a youngster repeat”.  Well speaking as someone who has coached “youngsters” (what a strange word) for over 20 years and who views the moral code of cricket as one of the bedrocks of the game, I would have no problem with any of my cricketers doing exactly the same.

What I find unsavoury is batsmen backing up way out of the crease before the bowler even approaches his delivery stride.  I have a word for this – it’s called cheating.  When I am umpiring schoolboys I loudly tell the batsmen that he should know that I will always give him out with no hesitation if he is run out in this way.  You see it all the time as an umpire, almost every game and almost always from the better batsmen, those who have played the so called “higher levels” of schoolboy cricket.

For what it’s worth, I think the Sri Lankans deserve tremendous credit for giving him two warnings before running him out.  The laws were altered a few years ago to give batsmen more of an advantage (I won’t bore you with details) and so comparisons with the “Mankad” incident are totally erroneous and irrelevant.  The idea is that this idea of warning should be removed from the spirit of cricket and of people are cheating, run them out and they might not do it again.  Buttler is not guilty of dozily walking out of his crease in some kind of daze as some commentators are insinuating.  He is making a totally calculated decision that it is worth the risk to try to gain an unfair advantage, a risk not allowed in the laws of the game, in the hope that he is unlikely to ever get taken up on it.  Well now he has, and perhaps he will stop cheating when he is batting and other younger cricketers will follow……  Rant over.